


Little One

by AtlasTheseus



Category: Artemis Fowl - Eoin Colfer
Genre: AU, Butler is Holly's work partner, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, It's cold af, Julius Root (mention), One Shot, this is a daydream of mine shhhhhhhh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-28
Updated: 2019-01-28
Packaged: 2019-10-18 04:12:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,988
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17573642
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AtlasTheseus/pseuds/AtlasTheseus
Summary: Oneshot AU: Butler and Holly are tasked with rescuing a juvenile dragon from a train in Russia. His name is Artemis.





	Little One

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this like 2 years ago, back when I was still working on The Strangest Life fic. Artemis is the same type of dragon as my dragons in that AU. Hope you enjoy <3

The dragon compressed himself into a frozen ball, white scales glittering with frost, black ones sparkling like a night sky painted with constellations. The train car rattled beneath him, bumps in the track throwing him back and forth as lazily as one plays with the coins in their pocket. He rested his head against his propped-up knee, wishing he could close his eyes and drift off. But he couldn’t. It was not allowed.

He steadied his breathing and stilled until the shredded hay bales around him made more noise than he did. He was curled up in the furthest corner from the door, behind the hay. If anyone burst in here looking for a dragon, they would not find one. Not without knowing that it had become its tiny, skeletal, humanoid self.

It was easier to conserve his internal energies for heat in a smaller form. He pressed his wings down as far as they would go, imagining them to be made of insulating cotton rather than frozen membranes that leeched as much heat as they trapped.

His name was Artemis. And how sickening it was, that the only thing he knew about himself was what the knights had told him. They told him his designation, just like they told him everything else. Don't sleep. Don't speak. Don't look at any of us directly. Don't touch anyone or anything without permission.

Those were the rules, and he followed them. So did the others.

The dragon had not slept more than twelve times in his life. He needed to again, desperately, as was made clear by the burn of his eyelids. Drowsiness flirted with him, completely ignorant to what would happen to him if he did fall asleep. He shuddered. The motion pulled him wide awake again.

The train car rattled, but heavily this time. Too much for just another bump in the tracks. His heart fluttered with the possibility that the train was going to derail again. Last time, he nearly escaped because of it.

A bang sounded above his head.

The dragon snapped his head up toward the sound. 

Someone was tampering with the trap door on the roof. He shivered, knowing that only a knight would be foolish or determined or strong enough to mess about climbing on top of the train.

Another bang, louder. A grunt.

Artemis stuck his head out a little bit, craning it toward the roof. In the perfect darkness, his eyes could perceive the outline of the trap door, where the Siberian light leaked through slits too thin for snow. A third bang sounded. The person was trying to force their way in, without a key. Not a knight, then, or one who had lost their key to the slipstream.

The door was pried open, letting in a blast of frigid air and powder.

And then a giant leapt down into the enclosure, pulling the door shut behind him. He landed in the center of the train car, boots muffled by the sparse layer of straw, and activated a handheld device that showered misty blue light into the dark. He looked around. Sniffed.

The dragon shrank back down entirely. His eyes and mouth dropped open, and all blinking activity was cancelled for the next ten minutes.

This human was absolutely enormous.

He was, at the very least, five times Artemis’s size, and his heavy, fur-insulated coat and winter apparel made him look twice that. His shaven head nearly brushed the ceiling. Blond, hard features, eyes the color of black ice. Artemis’s breath left him noiselessly, utterly deserted him, as fear made a pit in the bottom of his stomach and filled him with a chill colder than the sub-zero atmosphere. The man’s body language suggested that he believed himself to be alone. His following statement confirmed it.

“It’s empty, Holly,” Butler said into his earpiece. (And little did he know, the deep rumble of his voice made Artemis tense up and clench his teeth.)

“Take another look around,” the elf’s voice replied with technologically-amplified clarity. “There’s still another heat signature in there. It’s faint, and small, but it’s there.”

Artemis’s ears picked up her words and translated them as if they’d been spoken aloud.

His tiny frame was wracked with a wild shiver.

The human switched off his earpiece, reaching for an army-grade torch. His movements were deliberate as he raised the light to his shoulder and let its solitary beam rake over the interior of the train car. He turned away from Artemis, stalking down towards the other end of the enclosure. His light flicked alternately between the sides of the car.

“I know you’re in here, little fellow,” Butler rumbled. “You might as well show yourself.”

Artemis’s head began to tremble. 

He couldn’t force himself to move from that spot, and even if he’d wanted to, it was only a matter of time before the human found him. After all, where could he go? Where could he possibly run to, quietly enough not to alert the man to his location? The clattering of the tracks was ever-present, but dulled. Dulled so much that he could hear the human’s boots with every step he took.

Butler reached the end of the car and turned around, casting his eyes toward the roof as well.

“Come on out. I’m not going to hurt you.”

He said it slowly, dragging out each word until the gravel of his bass voice tugged at the edges and made them sharp. It didn’t make him any more believable, though Holly had told him that young dragons responded more to sounds reminiscent of an oberon, or adult dragon. If there was any human capable of a voice as such, it was Butler.

Artemis counted down the seconds to their inevitable interaction. He had no way of knowing the human’s intentions, and his words were no comfort at all - knights had said similar things to him before, but it had only ever been a ruse to lure him toward them. His eyes were transfixed, focusing and unfocusing on the human’s form. 

Butler slowed as he neared the end.

He aimed his torch at one stack of hay, then the other. In the very corner, there was a glint of something at knee-height.

Artemis shrank down until he couldn’t any more. 

The light passed over his head, slowly the first time, and for a second, just one second, he thought the man might miss him entirely. But the light glanced across his horn and made Butler look twice. The human stepped forward once more, bringing the tiny dragon into full view and focus.

Artemis sat there shivering, the beam blinding him as he tried to see past it to the human’s face. He was a pitiful sight, half-frozen to death and sickly, scales tinged ever so slightly green in places where he was bruised. He was wearing only a skintight pair of rough black leggings. No shirt. No shoes or top of any kind. His ribs stuck out like rocks in a stream.

“There you are.”

Artemis’s fright redoubled. If fear were a sound, right now it would have been a high-pitched keening in his head. 

Butler clicked off his torch and set down a small glowing device on the floor. He stood tall and approached slow, calm, feeling the waves of terror pour off the dragon in sheets. How had he not noticed them before? The little reptilian fairy turned his head to meet his eyes the entire time, as if searching for any indication of intent. 

Butler did his best to portray an image of passivity, as best as one can when one is more than two meters tall and built like a titan. He knelt down and gave the boy plenty of time to react, not that there was any need - he was positively petrified with fear.

You poor thing, Butler thought, what have they done to you? 

Holly had told him what kind of things the knights did to dragons. Worse yet, he’d witnessed some of the horror himself. Hard as it was to watch, it was even harder to imagine being one of the creatures himself. He’d tried. Once. He couldn’t do it again.

“Easy now, little fellow,” he murmured.

Artemis’s trembling was visible now. He still hadn’t blinked.

His eyes moved from one body part to the next, trying to determine where the attack would come from. Would it be his fist? Or perhaps a well-timed kick would do him in. And his panic was only heightened by the fact this human was just so big; he took up so much space, and he was just mere inches away. His bulk cut off all escape. In order to remove himself from that corner, Artemis would have to launch himself over the straw, but by the time he made a move, the human would probably have a massive hand wrapped around his ankles. He was well and truly trapped.

Butler removed the glove from his right hand and set it down.

He began to reach out. This movement caused the boy to flinch.

“It’s alright.”

Gently, perhaps the gentlest Butler had ever been in his life, he rested his thumb and forefinger on Artemis’s chin. 

He proceeded to lift up the boy’s head, tilting it from side to side to check for obvious signs of trauma. There were so many. Sickly pallor in his scales, the grey sheen in the back of his pupils that suggested he’d been kept in total darkness for some time. His facial features could have been described as gaunt - a telltale sign that he was starved of light. Of energy. A few more years spent like this, and he’d be dead. As Butler continued his observations, he noted the solitary stream of tears that flowed down the left side of his face. But the boy never looked away. Either he had more nerve than a soldier staring down the barrel of the enemy’s gun, or he was so scared he couldn’t hardly breathe. Frozen, like a rabbit. Butler decided it was the latter.

To keep the dragon preoccupied, he continued their one-way conversation.

“What’s your name, then?”

Of course, there was no reply.

“That’s alright, you don’t have to tell me. Can you stand?”

Again, the dragon said nothing. He did nothing but breathe and stare. Waiting.

“I promise I’m not going to hurt you. I don’t bite.”

Artemis looked him up and down with an expression that screamed his apprehension.

Butler sighed, which he misinterpreted as a sign of impatience. The human reached out again, and this time Artemis stuck his head down, covering it with his tiny, thin hands. It struck Butler that he was dealing with a child, just barely twelve years old, by the looks of him. He saw the black band around his wrist, upon which was inscribed the word Artemis. Not a word, then. A name.

“‘Artemis,’” Butler murmured again. “That’s your name, is it?”

The dragon would have whimpered, but his lungs were so constricted that he had no air with which to make noise.

He started when he felt a hand on his back, stretching across both shoulder blades, so warm it felt like being touched by a hot iron. The heat thawed his scales and spread across his whole body, the energy of it rejuvenating him enough that he could finally take another breath. Artemis felt the human’s eyes on him all the while.

He couldn’t comprehend it.

What was this?

No human had ever treated him this way. None ever asked him his name, genuinely asked, as if they cared and it made some kind of difference. None ever touched him without inflicting pain. None ever looked at him as if he was anything other than a weak, pitiful creature, a slave, something to be abused. It was a miracle that this human had come so far without deciding to beat him or choke him or worse. Who was he?

Artemis looked up, this time employing the bravery that Butler had suspected, and his eyes asked a thousand questions at once. The most prominent of these was the obvious Why?

Butler saw the question, but didn’t answer. Instead he stood, startling the dragon again, and moved back to the center of the train car. Artemis craned his neck after, watching with fascination and mild confusion as an orange light blossomed from behind his silhouette - a glow cube, about a foot square, which hovered in mid-air a few inches above the floor.

Artemis felt its energy on his scales. Spurred by hunger and cold, he finally stirred from his spot. Hesitantly he padded over, assuming dragonoid form. Butler turned, hearing him, and he froze in mid-step. 

The human raised an eyebrow and stood.

Artemis’s dragonoid body was about six feet tall at the headblade, and his eyes met even with Butler’s collarbones. He reared his head back, shying away. 

Butler stepped toward him, cautious but firm, blinking sad eyes. He extended a hand, only for Artemis to swing his head and trill fearfully. But something about the human made him stop. Made him hesitate for a second, in the hope that maybe, just maybe, he could be trusted.

The giant man laid his hand over Artemis’s snout, peering down into his eyes.

“Some terrifying monster you are,” he remarked with a smile.

 

XXX

 

Some time later, there was a knock on the roof. Butler’s head snapped up at the sound, eyes greeted by the sight of his elfin partner, Holly, descending from the icy wind. Her wiry frame leapt down onto the straw a few feet away from the glow cube without hardly a sound. Graceful as a cat.

Artemis was sprawled out in front of the light source, chest rising and falling in a soothing, healthy rhythm. His face was practically serene, for being reptilian. His tail flexed in his sleep - for he was, finally, asleep. Butler sat beside him, stroking his head and neck tenderly. It was a gesture of affection that the man was rarely seen expressing.

Holly saw the interaction and nearly squealed.

“Aww…” she cooed, viewing their objective for the first time, “he’s just a little baby.”

Butler raised an eyebrow at her.

“Well...more like a teenager,” she amended. “He’s about twelve or thirteen, max.” Then she laid down her neutrino and knelt at the dragon’s snout, fingers brushing against his scales. “Hey, little one,” she breathed, “look at you.”

“His name is Artemis,” Butler said.

Holly cocked her head. “Huh.”

She sat back, letting the glow cube warm her to the core. “Julius wants to know what our plan is for exiting the train. It shouldn’t be that hard, considering we managed to knock out everyone except the driver.”

Butler did not reply. He was too focused on the dragon. Truly distracted - yet another rare moment for him. There was something about this boy that made him want to take him home and never let him live another moment in the cold and dark.

Holly got up and walked over, knocking a fist on his skull.

“Butler? You in there?”

He looked at her.

“Why do you think they armed and manned this entire train just to transport one little dragon?” he asked. “It seems a bit much.”

“Maybe they were expecting us.”

“Doubt it. A single train in the middle of Siberia? Nobody would think twice about it.”

“Okay, probably not.”

The conversation fell out there. She stared at Butler for a long time, and he stared at their little dragon boy, who looked to be experiencing pure bliss in his sleep.

Holly had met Butler during a recon mission gone horribly wrong - her squadron had been assigned to trace down a travelling herd of three trolls. It was an unusual situation, to say the least, seeing as trolls always hunted alone. But nevertheless, the six sprites and four elves of the LEP were sorely outmatched. And just when it seemed they were going to be gored and eaten, a giant human had torn his way into the scene, taking out the first troll with bullets, the second with construction equipment, and the third, after Holly brought him back from near-death with her magic, with a medieval suit of armor that he pulled out of the under-construction museum he’d been thrown into. He never once blinked at the sight of the shaken LEP officers.

The Council had wanted him mind-wiped. He was a terrifying sight, not good for public morale for their finest officers to be seen gallivanting about with a mud man the size of a house. Out of all of the officers he’d saved, Holly was the only one who fought for Butler. She persuaded her superior that he could be an invaluable ally. 

So Commander Julius Root decided:

“Alright, Mud Man, we’re gonna give you one chance to prove yourself. One of our officers has gone missing in Ireland. If you can go in and retrieve him from the compound, safe and sound, I’ll petition the Council to keep you on and let you keep your memories.”

He did as instructed. Got the Corporal out in three minutes. No casualties.

That had been two years ago. Now Butler was the LEP’s most powerful and trusted field operative, and their only human contact. He was also Holly’s steadfast partner in all missions.

“Almost time,” Holly remarked, looking at her watch. “We should get ready.”

“Yes, we should.”

Butler switched off the glow cube, and in the absence of its heat, Artemis’s sleeping form shrank to humanoid. Butler carefully hefted the boy up over his shoulder, and took Holly by the hand. By the time the train screeched to a stop, they were cloaked in Cham-foil and ready to slip past the Russian Knighthood guards. And then, just like that, a new chapter—a real chapter—of the dragon’s life began.


End file.
